Serie A: Verona vs. Inter Preview, Odds, Prediction

Verona and Inter Milan kick off the new batch of Serie A matches on Friday night. The legendary Bentegodi stadium in the city of Juliet and Romeo hosts the champions, who started the season pretty well last weekend. Meanwhile, Hellas have missed a chance to open the campaign with a victory in front of their fans, losing in the opener. It’s needless to say who is the favorite here, and the tradition is also on the guests’ side, but we’ll talk more about that in the remaining part of the article.

Preview

Verona (+425) closed the previous season with nine consecutive matches in which they didn’t win. That negative streak extended to 10 last weekend, once Hellas lost at home to Sassuolo, 2-3, in a highly entertaining game. Four of five goals came in the second half, and we can say that Sassuolo fully deserved to win here.

The champions of Serie A from 1985 are adjusting to their opponents, and they really don’t have some particular style of play. Verona knows how to score when needed, but they aren’t keen on attacking first.

We’ve seen them in various displays throughout the prep period, from 0-0 against Virtus Verona to 3-2 against Modena. So this team really doesn’t have some pattern of behavior on the field.

Inter (-195) won all the matches played since the start of the training camp. Six games played, six triumphs, with five consecutive clean sheets. It appears that Achraf Hakimi’s departure didn’t affect the rock-solid defense in front of Samir Handanovic.

The opening game of the championship at Meazza saw Inter smashing Genoa, 4-0, displaying one very good performance and indicating that they still have a team worthy of a title. Skriniar, Calhanoglu, Vidal and Dzeko, all scored, one after another.

Counting in the matches from the previous year, this was the 11th consecutive in which Nerazzurri netted at least twice. So even without Lukaku, Inter’s offense is great. We’ll see if Dzeko manages to keep up with this tempo until the end of the season. If he does, anything is possible.

Latest News

The Portuguese veteran Miguel Veloso won’t play in this match, serving a red card suspension.

Christian Eriksen is not in the protocol for Inter, but we already knew that. Alexis Sanchez and Roberto Gagliardini are both out due to respective injuries.

Head to Head Games

Verona didn’t beat Inter since 1992, almost 30 years. The latest two games were in December 2020, when inter triumphed at Bentegodi, 1-2, and in April this season, with the Nerazzurri winning at home, 1-0.

Prediction

Inter will win this match. Simone Inzaghi likes open and offensive football, which we saw once he led Lazio, and it appears that he wants to implement the same philosophy now. We expect an easy and routine victory of the current champions, who have far better players and kept the majority of the core from the previous year. The odds on the guests’ win are -195, and for the braver ones, we propose going with Inter -1.5 goals handicap. Profits here are much better, +145.

Pick: Inter wins -195